Star Wars: Sith Insurrection
by Mackenzie
Summary: A Sith from the old republic has returned. What will this mean for Luke and the New Jedi Order? Please read and review.
1. Default Chapter

Star Wars

Star Wars: Sith Insurrection

Chapter 1: Succession

Darkness, emptiness, desolation, unforgiving, lifeless. Such was the view of space as seen through the eyes of a young, if not easily impressionable apprentice as the brief swishing motion of the doors brought him into my sight. We are two of a kind. We are the only two of our kind. Thus it has been for endless centuries, and will continue to be for some time yet.

As I walk in the room, his head slowly rotates toward me, betraying no emotion, and most importantly, showing no fear. I have taught him well. He learned well, though I never tell him so. It is not our way. He looks very sepentine for one so young; only seventeen, his blue-black robe the color of darkened thunderstorm clouds, and like them, barely concealing the raging storm beneath. He has grown much in power, if not in the proper channeling of it, but he tends to be very sloppy in his use and overuse of it. We are sith. Our ways are subtle, our existence a myth, and we do not tolerate failure. His face, like my own, is barely concealable through the shadows thrown over his face by an oversized hood.

He speaks, his voice being comparable to the effect of dragging a durasteel rod in several layers of Grundolian silk, "They should have been here some time ago."

I give him my response, in my own slow, methodical, though not monotone voice, "We have survived countless centuries by virtue of patience, my apprentice, we will wait as long as is necessary for them to arrive. A virtue you would do well to learn. Impatience has been the undoing of many an aspiring sith lord."

The ones we were waiting for were a group of pirates who had recently broke away from Black Sun. Their ship was equipped with a cloaking technology that had enabled them to safely elude their previous employers. They had reason to believe they were being paid to transport us to Corellia with a large shipment of glitterstim and black market bacta. Who better to ship a group of black marketers than those with cloaking technology? They have reason to believe they are being paid well, thirty thousand credits worth of well. What they don't realize is, for starters, who we are, and second, that sith have no interest in things as petty as the narcotics and stolen goods trade. What I really want is their cloaking device, and I have every means available to me to take it.

This particular project has been five years in the making. Tracking down such rare and illusive equipment is a particularly sensitive area. Anyone with it guards it quite jealously, and others spend entire lifetimes trying to get it. On occasion smugglers and gun-runners are known to come across it and use it to make a very large fortune in a very short time; some of the very rare cases I hear there are such people who actually retire and eventually die in their sleep years later.

I leave the room and walk down the corridor, my footfalls ringing and echoing the whole way down. It is the one thing about me that I could accurately describe as being not subtle. I feel the air against my robes flowing silently. I can feel every ticking beat, every rhythmic pounding of the ship, even the beating of my apprentice's darkened heart. I feel all things through the force, even if I do choose to follow it's darker antithesis.

I feel my apprentice turn away from his portal and exit the room, making his way toward me. I know why even before he falls in step with me. The pirates, Captain Hadron has arrived.

………………………………

Docking with us took less time than I expected, and shortly afterward Captain Hadron came to introduce himself. His crew wasted no time getting our cargo moved from our derelic freighter into the cargo hold of their more top-of-the-line YT-800. After we had finished our transaction, boarded their freighter and detached ourselves from our ship, the two of us knew what was next. Our lightsabers came out in unison, his with a bright crimson blade, and mine of the same color, though of a much darker shade, more the color of dried human blood. I let go of my lightsaber, using my mind to keep it suspended in air for but a brief second, then sent it spinning in a propeller-like motion and speed, carefully guiding it to it's designated targets. A chorus of screams was heard throughout the ship, but within seconds, there was silence. I never bothered to watch the slaughter I had done. I killed as it was necessary, but I've never felt any need to glory in the act; such was never my nature. I stood in the cargo hold, on a balcony directly overlooking two open bacta tanks, as I raised all the bodies psycho-kinetically, and placed them in a pile in the center of a largely unused cargo hold.

What came next, I should have been expecting, but at the time, I thought it too soon. My hold over the force was abruptly severed and a felt something warm through my torso. I instinctively looked down, knowing what to expect: The bright red blade of my apprentice's lightsaber protruding from the center of my chest. I had been so focused on the job at hand, I had lost my hold on the mind of my apprentice. The blade disappeared, and my body fell, straight into one of the bacta tanks. The lid immediately closed; the work of my apprentice's own mind, I would assume. It was difficult to see clearly in that fluid, but I made out his form leave the cargo hold. Shortly afterwards, the cargo doors came open, and all loose material was swept away, including, not coincidentally, the bacta tank I was in. Everything around me went black, with pinpricks of starlight.

I had only one chance of survival, assuming I could pull it off. An old sith secret I had learned about in one of the texts. The last thing I remember seeing clearly was the old, junked freighter we came in being blown into sub-atomic particles……

My name was Darth Set. The name of my apprentice was Darth Sidious.


	2. The New Menace

Chapter 1

**Chapter 1: The New Menace**

How long have I been ceaselessly drifting like a Bontuu leaf on a calm ocean. It's become very hard to mark the passage of time out here in this cold and empty desolation. Here I remain, in a state neither fully conscious nor unconscious, yet though all this I remain aware. There is a certain numbing monotony to it all that would fragment the minds of most creatures. Is there an end to all this? 

I wish I could think that this turn of events came as a big surprise. 

My apprentice, the ever evasive Darth Sidious, or Palpatine, as he is known in some circles: I knew he would one day take it on himself to have me removed, but I didn't think it would be this soon. He has not learned enough, is not subtle, or patient, or graceful enough. There are just too many secrets I have that he has not yet learned. He will be the ruination of the whole order. Centuries of secrecy, of slowly building, will be brought down around him. He is far too sloppy and careless. He couldn't even do a good job of making sure I was dead, never mind those who will be of a more direct threat to him.

My lament in all this is that, while our order will be in ruins, yet will I live to be witness of it, and completely powerless to intervene. All those methodical years of planning, watching, and waiting. And for what? That pompous ass is going to destroy it all and there's nothing I can do about it.

I have been trapped for a long time, a very long time. In spite of not being able to measure time, I do know some things. Every once in a while I feel things that affect the nature of the galaxy. At one point I felt the fire of the Jedi become reduced to nothing more than a spark in a box of tinder, and the silent scream of millions of voices crying out in terror, and being suddenly silenced. There were other things, too, other devastations, a large catastrophic war and the word "clones" being closely associated with it.

There was but one moment in all this endless drifting that brought me no small sense of satisfaction. My aged and necrotic apprentice being lifted up over the head of a black man in a metallic mask and being thrust down a bottomless metal shaft, like a ruthless god in an old legend being dethroned. I knew then that the large black man was his apprentice, and my heart screamed in triumph. All my endless days of drifting were made complete by what I felt then. A lot of time has passed since then. Now it seems like it was a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away.

……………………………………..

Captain Tobin Brogan had never seen that much success in his life, as such things go. As a small-time trader and sometime smuggler, he managed to make enough to live on, and to support his family of four children, whom he left in private schools on Coronet. He had a wife once, who had been the mother of all his children, but like so many in these rough and turbulent times, he had lost her in this endless civil war. There was the New Republic, but it was far too new and unstable. Several of his colleagues had placed bets on how long this galactic republic would survive. He himself had two hundred credits on that bet.

There were rumors of a new imperial warlord, unlike anything previous. This one was from the Unknown Regions, and he didn't think like the other imperials, this one was very intelligent. He knew what his enemies had planned well ahead of time. He must have had ears right in all the inner councils of the senate.

Tobin lay comfortably on his bunk in his new bulk cruiser, the Nessie's Revenge, awaiting his arrival at his destination. If this job payed off, he was retiring. Nothing bothered him more than having to be away from his children so often and for so long, but what could he do? They needed to be looked after, and one of the only gainful means of employment was in shipping. It allowed him to be his own boss and to run his own schedule, which was not an easy one.

The alarm on the navicomputer went off, signalling that the ship was drooping out of hyperspace. He promptly got up and went to the bridge, and once he saw out his viewport, his heart skipped a beat. He was expecting the blackness of space, occasionally broken by pinpricks of star light, instead, his entire view was blocked by an Imperial Interdictor cruiser. This was really turning out to be a bad day. His ship had a lot of good maneuvering capability, which would prevent them from getting an easy lock on them with the tractor beam.

He banked a hard turn to starboard, which brought him within grazing distance of the interdictor's hull, but it had to be done. To go straight would have meant colliding with the hull altogether. Flashes of light tore past him as he continued his turn, which finally reversed him 180 degrees from his oncoming vector. These imperials were not playing around, whatever the case. They were hiding there waiting for someone else, in all probability, and he ended up getting caught in their web by mistake. Either way, they wouldn't want him leaving to tell away their secret.

Tobin had to be careful with his maneuvering and he knew it. One mistake with his flying and he'd have his ship locked in a tractor beam. Then it would all be over for him. His children would have no guardian, and they'd end up on the streets, just like he was. That knowledge made him work that much harder with his controls, until he finally cleared the interdiction field, after which his ship disappeared faster than a snowflake in a hot spring.

A few moments later, he came out of hyperspace, at one of his randomly calculated jump points he'd pre-loaded into his navicomputer for just such occasions. He expected to see nothing, but as he was about to set a new course, he caught a brief flash of light reflecting from a distant surface.

"Nessie, get me a scan on that object 19 degrees port and 17 degrees lateral." Tobin said.

After a moment of silence, his onboard computer spoke, "The object is a late-era old republic bacta chamber. There appears to be a living human male inside, in a cryogenic state. Sir, what interest is there in some old derelic bacta chamber that's been outdated since before the old republic fell?"

"Bacta has been a very expensive and valuable commodity since Director Isard's departure of Coruscant. The chamber may be obsolete, but the bacta inside is probably still valuable. Lock onto it with our tractor beam and tow it into the cargo bay."

"Yes, sir."

It took mere moments for the onboard computer to carry out Tobin's request. He soon went into the cargo bay to inspect his find. Nessie was right, though, the bacta tank was very obsolete. Unlike ones he was used to seeing, which were cylindrical in shape, this one was larger and more like a cylindrical hexagon in shape. A heavy frost build-up had accumulated since bringing it on the ship and it was no longer possible to see what was inside. A quiet calm prevailed through the cargo bay, and the silence was deafening all by itself. This was broken abruptly with the sound of a crack in the normally transparent wall of the tank. Tobin looked at it curiously, and was rewarded for his inquisitiveness by that same identical sound, and the sight of another crack, crossing the first one. There was silence for a few more moments, and then the storm. The bacta tank walls all collapsed under the intense pressure of hundreds of individual cracks running in all directions, followed immediately by what looked like an explosion from within the frozen bacta.

In the center was a human male, who looked no older than thirty years, save the appearance of his white hair, which hung to his shoulders and a beard that came down to his chest. His fingernails were long to the point of being grotesque, about six inches each. His toenails had somehow managed to claw their way out of his knee-high boots. Whoever this guy was, he'd been in there for a long time. He wore, what he thought were jedi robes and a long hooded cloak, all a deep, dark gray color that would not be mistaken for black, but at the same time, not unlike black in tone or intensity.

The man spoke, "You have freed me from the abyss of nothingness, and for that you will be well rewarded. What is your name?

Tobin noticed right away how soft and quiet the man's voice was, but at the same time, not in any way lacking in projection or clarity. Tobin answered, "Tobin Brogan. And you would be…?"

The man's intense eyes locked on him. His eyes had a feral quality all of their own. Whoever this guy was, he wasn't to be messed with, nevertheless, he did answer, "I am Darth Set.

Darth Set. That name meant very little to him. Oh, wait. Vader had taken the prefix name of Darth as well. Rumor held that in the old language, ealdrish, "darth" was the word for "dark", as in Dark Lord of the… Oh hell, what had Momma Brogan's little boy gotten into now.

Darth Set spoke again, "I can see that this means something to you."

It was a statement, not a question.

Tobin answered quietly, but audibly, "You're a sith."

Set did not answer, rather, he smiled and tilted his head back in a look of pride. 

"What are you going to do with me?" Tobin asked.

"What is really on your mind is 'Am I going to kill you?'. I don't know what exposure to the sith you've had at the hands of my successors, but let me assure you, you will live and you will live well. I only ever kill out of necessity."

There was a long awkward silence. Set decided to break it, "I've been away from the countless worlds for a long time and I will need to catch up on all the things I'm behind in. I need a good pilot and I can give you a lot of wealth in exchange for your services, I need you shuttle me to a few locations and finally to Coruscant. After that, you are free to leave. In exchange for all this I will pay you one hundred thousand. Will be agreeable?"

One hundred thousand. Tobin would be able to be with his kids a lot more in the future. Too much to just walk away from, "All right, you've got yourself a pilot. Where's our first stop?"

"Yavin 4." 


End file.
